Agricultural History Review, Volume 56 Part 1 (2008), p. 94

The Raunds Area Project was one of the major cutting-edge British landscape research programmes of the later twentieth century. Its objective – to define and contrast changes in the landscape of the area around the small town of Raunds in Northamptonshire from the Neolithic to the end of the medieval period – was intended not only to provide a context for a number of large rescue excavations in the area but, of much wider relevance, to extrapolate from this research and advance more generally knowledge and understanding of the character and process of the development of the English landscape. The project was designed from the outset to be large-scale, interdisciplinary and multi-period, and was intended to be a model of historic landscape investigation, avoiding the pitfalls and limitations of earlier, less formally scoped or holistically planned landscape projects.

This handsomely produced volume presents the results of the resulting six years of fieldwork and subsequent analysis. It begins with an introduction to the project area (40 square kilometres east of the River Nene in east Northamptonshire), and objectives, including three particular themes: the ceremonial landscape of the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age; agricultural expansion in the Iron Age and Roman periods, and the process of village formation in the Saxon period. An extended methodological statement then reviews the aims, scope and methods of the archaeological, environmental and documentary research. Field-walking is discussed in particular detail, reflecting the strategic emphasis of the project on field-walking as widely as possible across the project area. Next ‘The Natural Landscape’ reviews the geology and topography of the project area, and the environmental evidence for human impact on the natural landscape. This is followed by a detailed chronological review of the character and development of the settlement pattern and agricultural land-use, based on archaeological and documentary evidence, spread over two chapters. A substantial (129-page) ‘Settlement and Land-Use Digest’ then presents detailed descriptions of the individual sites, including pottery distribution maps, magnetometer surveys and even some excavation plans. This is followed by a short final section presenting the project’s main conclusions, which firstly summarises the inferred development of the landscape, and then considers the implications of the project for similar projects in the future.

The Raunds Area Project succeeded in field-walking more than 70 per cent of the project area (c.3,000 ha), revealing c.70 new sites which, assessed alongside other archaeological, environmental and documentary evidence, provided a solid empirical base for the reconstruction of spatial and chronological patterns of settlement and land-use across a range of land types from sub-alluvial floodplain to boulder clay plateau. Despite some limitations, such as the lack of opportunity for excavation on any of the boulder clay sites, these data allowed the authors of this report to suggest with some confidence that (for example), the Neolithic valley landscape of mixed woodland and open pasture grazing was almost completely cleared of trees during the Bronze Age; that the Iron Age was characterised by increasing numbers of farms, including some on the boulder clay by the fourth century BC; that an increasing intensity of settlement and agriculture in the early Roman period was followed by a decline in both from the second century ad, especially on the boulder clay, and was apparently accompanied by an early period of settlement nucleation in the valley; that settlement in the early/middle Anglo- Saxon period showed a preference for river valley sites but did not altogether withdraw from the clay plateau, of which substantial areas continued to be cultivated; that an infield/outfield system was in operation around the villages in the late Saxon period, but that the open field system was probably instituted at some point during these centuries; that population expansion in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries led to the creation of new minor settlements rather than infilling of open spaces in existing villages; and that widespread desertion of village fringes and complete abandonment of the hamlets in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was accompanied by a reversion to grassland in much of the region. These and more general assertions, all highly pertinent to major academic debates, such ‘there is no simple development from Roman villa to medieval manor’ (p.95); ‘boulder clay constitutes no hindrance to a champion landscape’ (p.129) or ‘the Saxon folk movements and subsequent adjustments greatly affected the local landscape’ (p.274) can be examined at almost any level of detail in this publication.

Reading the volume from cover to cover, however, does generate considerable frustration over the grindingly long time lapse between the end of fieldwork and final publication (16 years), and even between completion of the written report and its eventual publication (12 years). This is compounded by repeated references to the limitations of the unfinished state of post-excavation analysis which leaves authors to make ‘incomplete and interim’ statements (e.g. p.31). After such a long wait, it seems unacceptable to be left to wonder whether such work has now been completed, and if so, whether the published statements still stand. The delay has also denied authors and editor the opportunity to consider their observations in the light of other major settlement and landscape projects of the 1990s and 2000s which, ironically, have themselves benefited from the information and ideas generated by the Raunds Area Project. These have, of course (and rightly so), filtered out over the years before this publication, with the consequence that much of the material presented here, which was so novel and exciting a decade and more ago, has since either been challenged, or become the new orthodoxy: its impact, to the informed reader, is therefore somewhat muted.

However, this should not ultimately detract from the tremendous value of this volume. It contains a vast quantity and range of information and ideas which are, and should continue to be, of great interest to anyone studying any aspect of the development of the rural landscape. The volume is extremely well-presented, with only a few errors and inconsistencies, and accompanied by clear, useful illustrations including 12 large foldout maps packaged separately as part of a rather sumptuously presented boxed set. The delay in publication feels frustrating now, but this will become less of an issue over time. This is definitely a volume to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.